HI Ajax and THANKS! , you asked for the shot, here we go :) It is only a little TEST, need to change the specular maps [are still not finished] they have to give a blue-green speacular light. :) AND face_off i GO TO CHECK THE CUBE FOR YOU NOW :))

Thanks Cath :-)

For some odd reason, when I try the ears translucence on M3, his nostrils collapse. I had a single white light as backlight with all the materials with the settings in Cath's first post.

Mec4d, I did a couple of quickie tests. Firstly plugging the diffuse into the translucence gives an effect that you don't get with plugging diffuse into ambient. So in that case translucence does not equal ambient. But I think that effect doesn't explain you "glowing" nose, etc on Bart. I wonder if you are getting those effects for a different reason. Because he is front-lit, and you are not using the diffuse node - those glows are the effects of translucence acting as ambient. You you are adding ambient light onto his head according to a map. Which looks fantatic! But I think it's important to understand /why/ you are getting the effect. On to the attached render. I've just got 1 backlight in the scene (I should have reduced the specular - sorry). It /looks/ like translucence right? But it's not. It's ambient controlled by a map, but also controlled by the main light position - to give a better fake sss effect. Move the light, and (after running the script), the sss red glow moves across her body. So I'm interested in your Bart renders - if you move the lights - does the glow change. If it does - then this is a major breakthru... Very interested to see how you go with the cube...

Face Off very nice effect you did there, did you saw the animation above? there you can see what happen to the model when you move the light. I used Alternate Diffuse in the first diagram that why it glow, I don't need the hard shadows on the skin so in place of a toon shader I just used the Alternate Diffuse. I will go into poser about couple of min and will show you the cube, but I will better user an organic model for the effect, because it will give you the idea of the body, I will save the scene and upload so you can test self that it works ! :) see around when I see you Cath

SO this ALL native Poser5 with No python involved??? if so that good news for mac users

Mec4D - yep - watched the animation....many times. I'm not sure it really demonstrating what I wanted to see. An animation of a single light rotating around Bart would tho.

Mec4d - all the sss stuff I've been working on is in a tutorial at http://www.users.on.net/~pkinnane/RealSkinShaderTutorial.html. It's getting a little long in the tooth now (it's 2 months old), and doesn't include all the tricks of plugging maps into the nodes, but the basics are there.

I keep messing up on the ear translucence... I think I'll wait until the tutorial is set up since I'm obviously not setting my mapping up right.

Attached Link: Poser5 Tutorials- video flash movie

I made tutorial only for the translucene material setting for one organic model not Michael. I have top update everything so the time was gone!! I will do more today. check on my website, I will post tomorrow more tutorials there for Poser5 Shader nodes so check out if you wish for more funky info. :) Cath

Damn - renderosity aet my original post :-( So this is the shortened version - apologies if it reads abrupt.

Cath, a couple of points on your tutorial...

1. The phong node should be plugged into the Alt_Specular, not the Specular_Color

2. The tutorial doesn't work if shadows are switched on

3. If you use a single light, make it a spot light, and point it AWAY from the object, it still renders as if the spotlight was pointing at the object.

4. When you deleted all the lights, of course it rendered black, since the diffuse node was plugged in. I dissagree with the tutorial text saying that it proved it wasn't the same as ambient. If you plug the diffuse node into ambient, it will also render black.

5. I agree that under certain circumstances translucence doesn't act identical to ambient. If you run your tutorial, but use ambient instead of translucence, the opposite side of the object is lit. So in theory, translucence could be used as a form of backlit sss (won't work as front-facing sss - which it the most important part of skin realism) - although only if you don't render with shadows on.

6. If you are not using the diffuse node plugged into translucence, then translucence is the same as ambient. So for your Bart image above, plugging that map into the ambient node instead of the translucence node will give you the same results....without the problems listed in 2) and 3).

And still looking forward to seeing what your thoughts on the cube are.....

Message edited on: 02/06/2005 02:18

face_off : I can say that Translucence are the same as Ambient because it is not so, not in Maya not in Poser, that the shaders are not really perfect in Poser then it is another story. If you want to get the front-facing sss, use the velvet node to get the tiny hairy effect like on the human skin. I like your renders and can see what you used for rendering but this is hard to get the same effect in Poser5. --------------------- your wrote: 2) The tutorial doesn't work if shadows are switched on. It works much better with shadows as without shadows. I can see what I do in real time, so I am not blind :P ---------------------------------------------------------- regarding # 6) you are right you can get the same effect, but when you trun the light off it still glow :) and with my translucence not! and we can debate until next year about. Set your translucence value down and you get better effect. and now I go to check for real the cube :)) thanks for tips!

ok I tested and I will tell you that I don't see anything strange

It works as it have to work, when you put a light on a paper box in reality it will the same glowing effect because a paper box give the light this way and is not organic, self a little bit of light make the box lighter and that is real cartoon box translucency.

I don't expected anything else :)

Cath P.S blue is back translucence light and green is the front light

Message edited on: 02/06/2005 02:50

OK, here is the cube example....

And if you remove the lights....

And the shadow issue....

And one more on the relationship between ambient and translucence....

"If you want to get the front-facing sss, use the velvet node to get the tiny hairy effect like on the human skin. I like your renders and can see what you used for rendering but this is hard to get the same effect in Poser5." OK, I'm not absolutely sure what you are saying here....but to clarify, I'm not using the velvet node (couldn't get it to give realistic enough results) - I'm using other techniques - which are detailed in the tutorial. I render in P5, so I'm not sure what you mean by "is hard to get the same effect in Poser5".

OK Last post here for the day....

Cath, attached is a render using your ear back-lighting technique (although using diffuse rather than translucence). The top image is with 2 lights (one front, and one back). The lower image uses just the backlight. Both images created by plugging an extra 2 nodes into the HyperReal system. Works a treat - thanks.

Sure it still render if you use Ambient and translucence color ON. You made mistake!!! and FACE_OFF it is my last message regarding this discussion that you don't understand what you do. The effect you try to show have nothing to do with translucence effect, Translucence is the same as Diffuse but with difference that diffuse show the surface on the same side as the light come from , and translucence is the opposite. Maybe my english is bad to understand I don't know... If you show images as the above you will make wrong idea for the users, because it is wrong. and I am sure about when I speak about. Cath

Ok very nice renders and effect, in any way you got the effect you wish as well and it get about. I am not ok with your Screen shots..

read me in Green

Cath: I tried your method in post 52 and finally got the ears to work for me! I really don't know about the nose. Thanks for all your help. Jeremy

Message edited on: 02/06/2005 23:17

Cath, I've taken a lot of time and effort to help you. Obviously this is not appeciated, so I'll leave you to it.

Hey Jeremy it looks cool! Congratulations! you know you can plug in 3D texture node : noise :to get nice bump effect on the skin. it will perfect and without seams.. if you don't know how I will make simple tut in flash. :) HugsCath

face_off , thank you very much for help in this topic, I learn from this much more too and got deeper in and make myself more sure what I speak about. Your method is nice too and will be used in right time, don't be so negative it is just Poser!! and so is exciting! Thanks again and hugs! Cath

Cath, is the bump effect through the bump node or the gradient bump? I'm thinking that you would do a gradient noise through one of those 2 nodes to get the effect you are talking about :) Jeremy

see the example, you can play with and see what you get, play with the value of the spot node.

"Cath, I've taken a lot of time and effort to help you.
Obviously this is not appeciated, so I'll leave you to it."

What the ....????????!!!!!

Anyway Cath thanks for your posts on this matter
Some of us here appreciate you taking the time to share
this FREE technique
its good to see that there are FREE
Cross platform alternatives
for getting HYPER real Skin in poser5 Message edited on: 02/07/2005 06:38

Thank you !!! :)

Attached Link: http://www.mazak-grafikwelt.de/test/Venus2_02.jpg

Yeaaaa Cath, I agree 1000% with wolf359, thank you very much for this free tip. The sss effect you can only achieve with professional (and very expensive) software. That effect to recreate with poser5 is excellent. Here is an example of the sss effect in Cinama4d http://www.mazak-grafikwelt.de/test/Venus2_02.jpg

Mazak

yes it looks very beautiful Bodo. Thank you!! Renderman have it as well and a very good too.. from this come my idea to test it in Poser5 It is important in Poser5 to use the Light Diffuse node for the Translucence, this way it will never glow in dark. it is better to plug your textures into the diffuse node. I made some more test today with and will post the new tutorial on my website. As you said Bodo this effect is great in Cinema4D, but you can get it in Poser5 with very right maps, and it is a great idea to test it again. Cath

"Some of us here appreciate you taking the time to share
this FREE technique
its good to see that there are FREE
Cross platform alternatives
for getting HYPER real Skin in poser5"

There has been for some time the real shader tutorial by face off...
http://www.users.on.net/~pkinnane/RealSkinShaderTutorial.html
That's free as well.

And i really do appreciate all the information in this thread as well! There are so many things you can do in the material room. And there is still so much to learn about it.

Message edited on: 02/07/2005 16:14

LOL...I applied the spot mapping and he looks like he's melting.

Here's how he looks with the bump lowered to 0.02 :)

can you try to reduce the spots size? for the ball it was to big :) nice effect too in the first one!! if you use the same setting for the body you will get nice effect of the figure without seams.

Here's the reduce spots version with the same settings on the body :)

I just wonder if blending the smaller spots and the larger ones could make him look like there were blood vessels in his head...

Yes Jeremy, try it it works fine, add some freckles too using spots:) he looks slowlly better and better :)

Okay. I read everything.
Faceoff speaks about the shininess of the skin while Cath speaks of transluency.
Different effects.
I think that's why the discussion ended abruptly: there was no communication based on a shared idea, the most important one being the definition of transluency itself.
Cath gave one that seduces me well.
Though, I highly recommend to use very very low values for this effect for the ears. All the more, don't use it for something else than realistic closeups. Otherwise it would be pointless.
I think there is a more interresting application of this effect for clothes, opaque but that let some light pass through them and light the skin under...
PapaBlueMarlin, the last render is great, try to decrease the highlight though, his skin shines a bit too much.
A final tough tip: when you're in realistic renders, no error could be forgiven. Pay attention to every details, specially the eyes (one of the first thing we look at)(after the breast, if it's a girl) and the shadows. With shadow map lights use a zero bias value.

Oh! I forgot something important! Thank you so much all! Big kisses to you Cath for sharing this interresting experiment! :)

Thanks for your advice Olivier, I'll definitely try that. I haven't been working on this for a while since I've taken a vow to play more with the Sixus1 figures this month :)

Thank you Olivier!! :) Hugs Cath

AKmaterialroombookmark

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=921068&Start=1&Artist=PapaBlueMarlin&ByArtist

Here's the next WIP. I decreased the specular and added Cath's eye trans material to the corneas. I'm not really happy with the result...